When it comes to the response to Covid-19, the notions of the political left, right and centre have all gone for a toss. The labels may have lost meaning after being hurled, well, left, right and centre, in accusing this or that political leader’s stance on precautionary measures. What once was a leftist stance is adopted by the right. Conversely, what was allegedly right-wing is embraced by the left. Blame it on the twists and turns of the pandemic!

Consider shutdowns. A harsh measure, but for experts, a sure way to prevent the virus spread. It also shows the State (government) is powerful enough to set aside your individual liberty. To some, it reeks of authoritarianism. So, when a leader decides to impose a shutdown, it would be logical to call the measure conservative, and a liberal may oppose it. That’s what simple political logic would have been – before Covid-19. That’s what a detailed book review (about plague and quarantine in 17th-century Italy) argued in the left-leaning London Review of Books in February 2020: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n04/erin-maglaque/inclined-to-putrefaction

Within weeks, many right-wing icons were criticized for *not* imposing shutdowns. Trump and Bolsonaro, among others, were accused of the worst tendencies of the right, prioritizing economy over people’s lives. In India, Modi imposed possibly the harshest lockdown – and faced criticism (though much of it was about the unnecessarily short notice). Of course, this year, he faced criticism for *not* imposing a lockdown when experts believe it should have been.

But then the conservatives in the US have been extra-critical of Dr Anthony Fauci for the same reasons that the left would use to target the right in normal times.

On masks and vaccines, deniers are usually from the conservative camp, backed by the Republican Party in the US. Their mascot could be Bolsonaro. But wasn’t this stance, of claiming individual choice over what’s apparently good for society at large, more commonly held by leftist-liberals in earlier times?

Also read:

"The Extremely Weird Politics of Covid"
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/opinion/covid-politics.html

"Right-wing nationalists failed during the pandemic. But they weren’t the only ones"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/03/pandemic-nationalism-failure/

Ideology survey:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/07/30/those-on-ideological-right-favor-fewer-covid-19-restrictions-in-most-advanced-economies/

Ideology and Covid response in Australia:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7867395/